I got into my hotel in Urbandale on the northwest side of Des Moines around 8 p.m. one evening last December and asked if they had a list of restaurants in the area. They gave me a sheet and I studied it as I took my bag up to my room. One place sort of stood out for me on the list - a sports bar called The Beerhouse that was just over Interstate 80 from my hotel. I decided to give The Beerhouse a try that evening.
The building that houses The Beerhouse actually started out as a third location for a popular local steakhouse called Jesse's Embers. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the original Jesse's Embers on Ingersoll Ave. in Des Moines.) The Jesse's Embers in Urbandale didn't last all that long as the area around it was far from being developed as it is now. An upscale Italian restaurant took its place after Jesse's Embers closed in 2007, but less than a year later it, too, was out of business.
Jerry and Kim Cobb saw an opportunity in the building that housed the two restaurants that didn't make it. The came up with a concept of a neighborhood place - a sports bar - that served good food at an affordable price. Live music would be available at times and they wanted to have an outdoor patio where friends and families could congregate in the summer months. They renovated the building and opened Overtime in 2009. Their daughter, Kristi, was the general manager of the place.
In 2013, Jerry and Kim Cobb decided they wanted to retire to Arizona. A few months later they sold the business to Cindy Barnes-Stone, who owned a small coffee shop/diner in Urbandale; and Ron Biondi, the owner Ron's Dawg House, a now-closed tavern on Hubbell Ave. in Des Moines. Barnes-Stone and Biondi ran the business for seven months before they realized they couldn't make a go of the place and they gave it back to the Cobb's in late 2014.
The Cobb's, now living in Arizona, really didn't want anything to do with the sports bar, but their daughter, Kristi, was interested in doing something with the place. Along with business partner Nick Kuhn - who ran a couple of food trucks around Des Moines - Kristi Cobb bought Overtime from her parents and rebranded it into a beer-centric sports bar that featured nearly two dozen craft beers on tap. They called the place Overtime Beerhouse, but shortened the name to just The Beerhouse a few months later.
The Beerhouse is your typical sports bar - a lot of flat panel televisions, sports motif, community tables in the center of the dining room. It was packed with people in to watch basketball that evening.
I ended up sitting at the bar and the bartenders were pretty busy trying to keep up. Finally, one of them - a young lady by the name of Jess - came up to me. I noticed that they had a Kona Brewing Co. sign in the window above the front door when I walked up to the building, but when I ordered one of those Jess told me that they didn't have any Kona beers. Somewhat crestfallen, I saw that they had a Des Moines IPA from the Confluence Brewing Company in Des Moines and I got that. She got my beer and brought me back a food menu to look over.
The food menu is typical of most sports bars - burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, pizza, salads. Nothing that was really out of the ordinary. But I really didn't know what I wanted for dinner that night. They did have fish tacos on the menu - blackened grilled tilapia with avocado and a mango salsa were one of the offerings. They had a blackened ahi tuna sandwich available. And they had lamb sliders with sliced gyro meat topped with tzatziki sauce, red onion, tomato and cucumber.
The one thing that I kept going back to on the menu was the smoked brisket reuben sandwich. Instead of sauerkraut, it was topped with cole slaw. Instead of Swiss cheese, it was topped with smoked gouda. And it came with Thousand Island dressing on grilled marble rye bread. And - as an added treat - I could get tater tots on the side. And they gave me a load of tater tots. When Jess asked me if I wanted sour cream or ranch dressing for the tots, I replied, "Sure!"
From there, things went down hill.
The sandwich was, in a word, horrible. The brisket was tough and dry. And while it had a bit of a smoky taste, it was absolutely horrible in the overall taste. Period. I'm sorry. I could not think of one redeeming thing about the brisket reuben. I ate half the sandwich and forgot about the other half. And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that I even ate that much of it.
The tater tots were cool, not cold, but they'd been sitting for awhile before they were put on the plate. I also found that I like neither sour cream or ranch dressing with tater tots. Give me a bottle of Cholula with my tots, please.
And Jess was suddenly nowhere to be found. I don't know if she went on break or what happened, but I would have liked to get another beer but there was only one other girl behind the bar. And she was talking with a friend behind me at the L-shaped bar complaining about how busy they were that evening, calling it a "shit show" with all the people in the place. Another male bartender came out from the back, I got his attention and asked for my check. I just needed to cut my losses and get out of there.
With a sports bar with the name of The Beerhouse, I had high hopes of having a good sandwich along with a good selection of beers. Well, the brisket reuben sandwich I had was absolutely horrid, and while they did have an adequate selection of beer, they didn't have the Kona Brewery beer they had advertised in the front window of the place. My bartender/server started out good, but she disappeared on me when I wanted to get out of there. I did not have a good experience at The Beerhouse and I'm hoping that it's an anomaly because it seems to be a pretty popular place. But a lot of times, the first impression is a lasting one. And I can't see any reason to go back to The Beerhouse at any time in future travels to Des Moines.
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